Someone once said… “Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”

This is the little chapel by the sea on Captiva. There is something so serene about this place- I love it.

My travels south started out with traffic jams and a grumpy hubby who said we are never taking our vacation by car again-back to the sky next year. The drive was my idea. It had been a long time since I traveled afar by car, we always fly to our destinations but I had this romantic idea of the open road and little kitschy places tucked away off the beaten path just waiting to be discovered by me.

You know that dream of mine… hopping in a hippie van and traveling the us with my camera and a journal, documenting every ounce of cool and kitschy I can find.

The cool and the kitschy were not along the expressway and I didn’t take many pics, didn’t even write one sentence in my journal. I’m not sure why, it just didn’t happen.

The ride home was a little different. We were forced to get off the beaten path when the expressway was nearly closed down due to the insane amount of people heading north after spring break and the snow birds heading back to Michigan. This was a good thing!

Although I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures or jot things down in my journal, (hubby was driving like a mad man in an attempt to get out of Florida and get away from the people he claimed didn’t know how to drive, I was hanging on for dear life) I did see some things that were amazing and kind of surreal. I saw tiny shacks and mini log cabins that looked like something out of the 1930’s. They were full of life, clothes hanging on the line, junk scattered across the yard, children playing out front and one with an alligator hook hanging over the pond, baited and ready to catch sunday’s dinner. It was hard to believe we were still in Florida or the U.S. for that matter.

Since I didn’t get a chance to take pics at rapid speed,( hubby wasn’t stopping for anything at that point) I borrowed this image of a Florida shack from sxc.hu.

We passed tiny houses that looked like they hadn’t been changed or updated in 80 years or more. Just as I felt like we had entered a time warp, we would pass a modern gas station or car dealership, out in the middle of nowhere. It was interesting and kind of amazing too. This was the old Florida drive I remember taking as a child, very rural and charming. I guess one could feel sad when looking at the dilapidated places along the road but it just wasn’t like that. They were full of life and seemed to be a lifestyle that was lived on purpose, simpler and uncomplicated, or so it seemed, maybe this was just my romantic side believing that these people had chosen a life that imitated a simpler and happier time for them . I can’t believe how much lives differ from one area to another.

This trip was restful and refreshing but it stirred up that wander-lust inside me. I’m just itching to hop that hippie bus to destinations unknown, journal in hand, camera ready.

My Diary

I’m Java June or Junie as my friends call me. I’m just a hopeless romantic with a master’s degree in all things dreamy. I could be described as a mid-western girl-next-door with a case of wander lust. My curiosity for all things that cannot be explained sometimes gets me in some unusual predicaments. Come dream with me between the pages of my diary.

This diary reveals a curious soul who can’t stop looking for little sprinkles of magic through the lens of her camera.

Click on the photo below for a peek at my flickr photo stream-it’s full of a little fun and a lot of crazy.

I think I may have found my bliss and a new career.

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